Brennen - A Birth Story

The tricky thing about a 4th pregnancy is you have lots to compare to.  This pregnancy was definitely easier than the twins, but from the beginning I was more physically and emotionally tired and had a harder time dealing with all the normal discomforts of pregnancy.  Regardless, everything was uneventful until the third trimester.

At 28 weeks 6 days I was up all night, very uncomfortable with lots of low back pain and  low pressure though not really any contractions.  Something just seemed off and I was feeling really anxious about it all so I decided to go to the hospital to get checked out.  After a full day of monitoring they determined that I wasn't having contractions and wasn't dilating.  However, they did do a fetal fibronectin test which checks for the presence of a protein that is present when labor is likely to start within 2 weeks. That test came back positive, so I was sent home with instructions to sit down as much as possible and lift as little as possible.  Thankfully Logan was able to cut his school schedule so that he was only taking online classes for the next 8 weeks and Caiden and Rylan started preschool 3 days a week.  Had we not been able to make those adjustments I really think I would have gone into labor pretty quickly.  Life is very physically demanding with 4 little ones, 2 of which can't walk yet!

The next 7 weeks passed very slowly and while everything stayed pretty calm it was very hard to spend my time mostly sitting on the couch (trying not to think about everything twinge and discomfort).  I had several completely sleepless nights and a lot of anxiety.  Around 33 weeks I started having contractions, nothing so hard that I couldn't talk through them but most days I would have them every 15 - 30 mins for hours on end.  Thankfully as time went on the anxiety lessened as I knew we were moving into less and less critical preemie status.

At 35 weeks I was checked and there was still no dilation, things were looking good.  After my 28 week scare I had been taking extra calcium/magnesium to try keep things calm and at 35 weeks I stopped taking it since things still looked solid.  At 36 weeks I woke up and definitely felt like Brennen had dropped and things were just a bit different.  Thankfully I had an appointment that morning anyway and when my midwife checked I was 2 cm dilated and still having my mild contractions but nothing seemed to be ramping up and people can be 2 cm dilated for weeks.  I was more uncomfortable the rest of the day but nothing specific.  Most of the night I had trouble sleeping and more contractions.  The next day my body was definitely working throughout the day and I'd have several hours with contractions (slightly stronger) every 10 mins and then and hour or two with nothing.  It was maddening!  Around 6pm the contractions were consistently 10 mins apart and started to get significantly stronger so I told Logan we needed to get someone to come over for the kids so we could head to the hospital.  Our neighbor was on her way home from class so she was able to come over pretty quickly.  She's watched the kids quite a few times so it was an easy transition.

At that time of day traffic can be pretty bad to the hospital but it wasn't terrible this day and it took us about 30 mins to get there.  I was having decent contractions every 5-10 mins at this point but could still walk and kinda talk through them.  We were in triage at 7:15 and when they checked I was 4-5 cm.  Definitely progress and proof that things were happening but a little disheartening since all my previous labors have been so quick and I have been 7 cm and working hard at first check every time.

It took about an hour to get admitted and moved to a labor/delivery room and since we were still in preemie time I needed a round of antibiotics through the IV.  By the time the antibiotics were done, all the paperwork had been completed and I was cleared to get up and walk around it was 10:15.  Logan and did laps around the halls (which was not much space) until 10:45 when I had to get back in bed and be monitored for 20 mins before getting up to walk again.  My midwife arrived at this point, checked me and said I was 5-6 cm - discouraging again because I was hoping for much more! 

While I was laying in bed for my 20 mins of monitoring contractions definitely started picking up and I was moving into the phase where it was necessary to focus on relaxing through them and fighting the urge to want to crawl out of my body.  Most of the time leading up to this point I was primarily having hard back labor (which was a first for me) but at this point Brennen must have turned because the contractions shifted to the front and felt like each one was making significant progress.  More hard contractions about 2 mins apart and at 11:30 or so the midwife checked again and said I was 9 cm - hooray!  Pretty quickly nurses started pulling everything together and making finally preparations for delivery.  I started to feel the urge to push, my water broke and after some tough pushes (which hurt more than I remember any of the others), Brennen was born at 11:48pm!

Nurses quickly checked him in our room and they gave him back to me so I was able to nurse him.  After 3 boys born at 33 weeks having my baby taken out of the room and straight to the NICU immediately after birth is not uncommon to me so I was so thankful to be able to hold Brennen right away.

At 6lbs, he was our biggest baby yet despite being born at 36 weeks 1 day (beat Rylan by 1 oz).  As usual the hospital had only a yogurt and pre-packaged sandwich that I could eat since the cafeteria was already closed so Logan went out to grab us some dinner - salad, steak and a baked potato never tasted so good!

Around 2:30am I was moved to a recovery room and Logan went home to relieve our babysitter.  It was a long night at the hospital with the nurse coming in no less than every 30 mins to check blood pressures, temperatures, blood sugars, etc on both me and Brennen.  I was exhausted and frustrated by the time morning rolled around!  Logan brought all the kids to meet Brennen the next day and otherwise the day and next night were pretty uneventful.  Saturday morning we were discharged and so excited to go home!